Article by
Barbados Today

Published on
May 16, 2017

Restaurant owner Michael Henry has been complaining about a foul situation on the west coast for almost three years now.

However, over the past few days the problem, which can be linked back to an overflowing sewage well, proved too much for the owner of Surfside Restaurant and his guests to continuously stomach, as the entire entrance to the seaside restaurant was flooded out.

Michael Henry clearing a blocked drain.

In response to a bitter complaint made by the businessman, management of the Holetown public centre, which houses the police station, post office and other Government offices, called in a private company yesterday evening to have the well cleared, so that by the time Barbados TODAY arrived there Tuesday morning, most of the offensive water was already drained off.

However, though happy that remedial action was taken to eliminate the awful stench that penetrated the walls of his local eatery, Henry was adamant that a lasting solution must be found.

“The police station has expanded so much that if you have a tank this size and you keep expanding, you can’t expect it to hold the same amount of water. You have to build something now to accommodate [the growing numbers],” Henry said.

“They [the Government landlords] pump all the time and it reoccurs all the time. Pumping is not solving the problem. They need to get into it because it’s not good for tourism, it’s not good for people to be walking into sewage water and the smell is not good,” he added.

The businessman also warned of the potential health threat to locals and tourists alike, saying, “You can’t have people, and 90 per cent are tourist, walking through sewage water.”

A clearly frustrated Henry also said the situation was hurting his food business.

“When you go to a restaurant and all you getting is a pool of water and the smell, you are not going to go to that restaurant,” he said, adding that the stench had also proven to be a major turn-off for tourists attending last weekend’s steel pan event at his St James establishment.

Efforts to get a comment from the landlords Tuesday were unsuccessful.